Tokyo, Sept 10 - Japan has tightened up rules on rice imports after a scandal in which tainted rice that was supposed to be sold for industrial use was instead used in food and alcoholic drinks.
It is the latest in a wide range of food scandals in recent years, ranging from traditional sweets to milk products, that has prompted consumers to lose trust in Japanese firms.
Three small companies that bought cheap tainted rice from the government had sold it as untainted rice for higher prices, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Japan, which is self-sufficient in rice, buys 770,000 tonnes of the staple food a year from abroad to meet requirements under international trade agreements but carefully controls the trade through government agencies.
The new rules mean that any rice rejected for food use at Japanese ports must be shipped back to where it came from, the ministry said.
Previously rice traders had the option of selling it for industrial use, such as glue or manure, or disposing of it in Japan.
"Now the sole option will be to ship it back," Tatsuya Kajishima, director at the ministry's grain trade division told reporters.
The latest scandal has seen some rice-based shochu alcoholic drinks being removed from shop shelves while the ministry said some had been sold to firms making rice crackers.
Some of the rice, stockpiled by the government for more than two years, had been contaminated with pesticides while some other rice had gone mouldy.
The ministry said it had investigated 19 companies that had bought foreign rice for industrial use and found at least three had illegally sold it to other companies.
Osaka-based Mikasa Foods has publicly apologised for its part in the scandal, and the ministry on Wednesday named two other small firms based in central Japan, Ohta Industry and Asai Ltd.